California data-center laws (2026)

On September 21, 2026 Governor Gavin Newsom approved seven bills regulating data centers in California, chaptered as Chapters 434 through 440 of the Statutes of 2026. The package requires data-center operators to report energy use to the California Energy Commission and energy, sound and water estimates to local permitting agencies; directs the Public Utilities Commission and other electricity providers to adopt data-center tariffs that assign interconnection, generation and other costs to data centers; conditions local permits on water-supply assessments, drought plans and workforce disclosures; and applies the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to data centers while creating a conditional route to streamlined review (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)). The Governor's office described the package as the "most comprehensive data center laws in the nation" (Source: gov.ca.gov).

Status and timeline

All seven are 2025–26 Regular Session bills. They were introduced between January 12 and February 20, 2026, passed their house of origin in late May, passed the second house in the last week of August, and were enrolled and presented to the Governor between September 4 and September 15. Each was approved by the Governor and chaptered by the Secretary of State on September 21, 2026.

Dates and votes are from the leginfo bill histories (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov). SB 1168 passed the Assembly 78–0 on August 28. The Governor's release lists SB 886 as authored by Padilla and McNerney; the chaptered digest names Padilla alone. The Governor's release groups the bills under electricity, water and land use, and states that it signed them as the Trump administration "moves toward deregulation" (Source: gov.ca.gov).

Two deadlines fall on January 1, 2028: the Public Utilities Commission's data-center tariffs under SB 886 and the community choice aggregator and electric service provider tariffs under AB 2383. AB 2469's water scarcity plan requirement also begins January 1, 2028, and the Energy Commission's first data-center load assessment is due in the 2029 Integrated Energy Policy Report (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Scope and definitions

The bills share a definition of a data center as a facility, or part of one, housing computing infrastructure "for the primary purpose of processing, storing, or distributing electronic data," but apply different thresholds. AB 1577's reporting covers facilities of 10 megawatts or more of electrical capacity. The AB 2383 generation tariffs apply above a threshold that the regulator or provider sets at no more than 25 megawatts. AB 2619 classifies data centers as Type I ("hyperscale," more than 10,000 servers or above 25 megawatts), Type II (2 to 25 megawatts) and Type III (below 2 megawatts), and applies its licensing duties to all three. AB 2469 and SB 887's CEQA provisions carry no size threshold. Publicly funded research, public safety, national security, publicly owned and utility facilities are carved out of AB 1577, the AB 2383 generation tariff, and SB 887's categorical-exemption bar (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Key provisions

Energy reporting (AB 1577)

AB 1577 adds Public Resources Code § 25302.10, which requires the Energy Commission to collect facility data on energization (location, floor area, anticipated peak capacity, anticipated onsite generation) and at least annually by month (maximum load, IT capacity, total energy use, power usage effectiveness, demand-flexibility participation, refrigerants, cooling degree days, onsite generation, fuel burned in onsite generators, and onsite storage). The Commission must publish the data annually in anonymized, aggregated form and, from the 2029 Integrated Energy Policy Report, assess data-center load trends and recommend measures for grid capacity, reliability and greenhouse-gas impacts. Government Code § 65909.3 requires permit applicants to give the city or county estimates of annual energy use, onsite generation, and average and maximum sound levels at the property boundary. Government Code § 7927.303 bars the Commission or a local agency from disclosing personally identifiable information or energy consumption data for a specific data-center customer (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Electricity tariffs and cost allocation (AB 2383, SB 886, SB 1168)

AB 2383 and SB 886 each add sections to the same Public Utilities Code article, Article 14.7, the California Technology Innovation and Ratepayer Protection Act. SB 886 creates the article and supplies the tariff mandate and interconnection rules; AB 2383 supplies the definitions and the cost-allocation content of the tariffs.

• By January 1, 2028 the Public Utilities Commission must establish data-center tariffs or update electric rules that prevent stranded costs for, or cost shifts to, other customers (§ 945.2).
• A transmission-level interconnection tariff assigns all transmission upgrade costs to the data center, caps refunds of its contributions at 75 percent of the annual net transmission revenue it generates, imposes an early termination fee for departure within 10 years or failure to ramp load, requires disclosure of duplicate interconnection applications filed elsewhere, and applies to agreements entered on or after January 1, 2027 (§ 945.3). Utilities must publish maps of locations where data centers can connect without significant upgrades. Before the tariff is approved, utilities may file exceptional-case contracts (§ 945.9).
• Transmission and distribution tariffs must recover a reasonable share of wildfire mitigation and liability costs, electrification and environmental program costs and other societal charges from data centers (§ 945.4).
• Generation tariffs for investor-owned utilities (§ 945.5) and, by January 1, 2028, for community choice aggregators and electric service providers (§ 945.6) must support clean-energy procurement targets, run for at least 10 years, and include non-completion and early termination fees, upfront collateral or prepayment, and a minimum payment based on projected load. Behind-the-meter zero-emissions resources reduce a data center's generation funding requirement.
• Data centers may join a new demand response program that imposes no net cost on other customers (§ 945.7).

SB 1168 adds Public Utilities Code § 901, directing the Commission to assess rate structures that make data centers pay their reasonable share of transmission and distribution costs and their proportionate share of load growth and procurement, and that relieve cost pressure on residential customers, including CARE and FERA participants. Its findings cite the California Independent System Operator's expectation of 2.3 gigawatts of data-center energy-use growth by 2030 and about 2,300 megawatts of data-center capacity applications to Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 2024 (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Water (AB 2469, AB 2619)

AB 2469 adds Government Code § 65964.7, under which a city or county may not approve a data-center construction permit, or an expansion that raises peak water use, unless the applicant has supplied a water supply assessment, a drought-stage water scarcity plan (from January 1, 2028), and projected water use and efficiency measures, and has assumed the full cost of the water infrastructure the supplier says the project needs. AB 2619 adds Business and Professions Code §§ 16000.4 and 16100.4, requiring sworn good-faith estimates of expected water use and source (maximum day, maximum month and average year) to the water supplier and on initial business-license applications, and annual reporting of total and direct water use and cooling system type at each renewal. It also amends Water Code § 10632 so urban water suppliers' annual assessments include the unconstrained demand of data centers (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Workforce disclosure (AB 2469)

The same AB 2469 permit condition requires the applicant to disclose estimated workforce composition, job classifications, employment duration, wage ranges and benefits, and the shares of the workforce residing in the county and in the state (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Environmental review (SB 887)

SB 887 adds Public Resources Code § 21080.08, making CEQA apply to data-center entitlements "notwithstanding any other law," and § 21084(f), which bars categorical exemptions for data-center projects. It also adds data centers and geothermal powerplants as eligible project types under the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2021, whose certified projects receive CEQA streamlining. A data center qualifies only if the lead agency certifies eleven conditions, among them advance payment of interconnection costs, no increase in in-state fossil-fuel use, four hours of zero-carbon storage at 100 percent of forecast peak, 100 percent zero-carbon hourly electricity within five years (75 percent newly developed), recycled water with water-efficient or waterless cooling, and a binding community benefits agreement. The Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation must develop uniform statewide standards for the conditions (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)). The Governor's release summarizes the effect as making data centers "ineligible for blanket environmental exemptions" and requiring them to meet state standards "before any judicial streamlining could be approved" (Source: gov.ca.gov).

Obligations by actor

Enforcement and penalties

The water estimates and reports under AB 2619 are made under penalty of perjury, which the Legislative Counsel's Digest notes expands the crime of perjury. Under the Public Utilities Act, a violation of a Public Utilities Commission order implementing AB 2383 or SB 886 is a crime. AB 2469 operates as a condition on local approval rather than through a penalty. None of the chapters sets a civil penalty amount (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Reactions

Newsom said that "with these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver's seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren't doing so at our expense" (Source: gov.ca.gov). The Data Center Coalition said its members were committed to responsible development; its director of government affairs Khara Boender said the laws "create significant uncertainty and introduces potentially duplicative requirements" and are "likely to further limit data center development in California — an already declining market" (Source: reuters.com).

Inside AI Policy described the package as including requirements that developers report expected air-quality and water-usage impacts (Source: insideaipolicy.com). The chaptered texts contain water-use reporting but no air-quality reporting requirement; the nearest provisions are AB 1577's reporting of fuel burned in onsite generators and of sound levels, and SB 887's greenhouse-gas mitigation hierarchy for certified projects (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)).

Comparison with other measures

Several other 2026 state measures address the same questions through executive action. Massachusetts Executive Order 658 (September 8) conditions state permits for data centers above 25 megawatts on conformance with the state's Statement of Expectations and a community benefits agreement; Virginia Executive Order 22 (September 18) bars executive-branch nondisclosure agreements and withdraws state site-readiness assistance from projects of 25 megawatts or more; and New York's moratorium (July 14) pauses permitting for new facilities drawing 50 megawatts or more. California's package is enacted by statute, imposes no moratorium, and relies on reporting, tariffs and permit conditions. At the federal level, the Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed the House on September 16, 2026 and is pending in the Senate, would have state regulators consider a full-incremental-cost ratemaking standard for loads of 100 megawatts or more (Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 9340 — text as reported in the House (September 10, 2026); Source: clerk.house.gov).

Relationships

• instance-of: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics — state statutory response to siting, water and grid-cost disputes
• supports: California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026) — chaptered texts
• related: Energy and Electric Power Sector — utility tariffs and cost allocation for large loads
• related: AI Data Centers, AI Environmental Impact, State-Level AI Regulation
• related: Gavin Newsom, Data Center Coalition
• related: Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. 9340), Massachusetts Executive Order 658 — Responsible Data Center Development and Operations, Virginia Executive Order 22 (2026) — data center accountability and AI task force, New York Data-Center Moratorium (2026)